The real problem with Jonathan Glazer

Every year the Oscars unleashes some kind of political controversy, and this year’s revolves around Jonathan Glazer’s speech denouncing Israel. Glazer, the director of the acclaimed Holocaust film The Zone of Interest, used his moment in the spotlight to rail against ‘the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people’. An open letter has sprung up to rebuke him, and even the film’s executive producer has distanced himself from Glazer’s remarks. Some argued that Glazer unwittingly betrayed his own film’s core message. In fact, Glazer’s comments flow naturally from the film itself, and from the very problem of focusing a Holocaust film on the ‘banality of evil’.   

The protagonist of The Zone of Interest, Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höß, is presented as the epitome of the ‘banality of evil’. He is a twitchy, conscientious civil servant. He commits his crimes at a distance, filling in forms and phoning suppliers. He concludes his conversations with a lacklustre ‘Heil Hitler, et cetera’.